From my service for the UNRWA, in the Israeli
Occupied West Bank, I recall an episode - an image that I have kept -
from the time right before the Madrid Conference. I was on service in
Nablus, Balata Refugee Camp, when a 12-year-old boy I knew from
earlier came up to my UN car - he wanted to tell me something - he
would like to know what I thought would come out of the peace talks in
Madrid. Before I had figured out how to respond, this Abu Shebab
started giving his own opinion. It was a vision of hope rather than
revenge, not hopes of bringing to trial the ones responsible for him
growing up in a refugee camp, to see his brother killed by Israeli
undercover units - nor did he make any mention of any kind of justice
in any connection that day. He was speaking about a certain decency,
not for himself, nor yet for the other camp dwellers, but for the
refugees of 1948, in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan - the least likely to
get anything in Madrid, and who later would get nothing but a
confirmation that their hopes were faint.

He was gazing at the hills in the distance,
pointing at a cluster of modern red-tile-roofed houses on the eastern
hills overlooking southern Nablus - the Israeli settlement of Elon
Moreh, I think it is. "The Refugees of Rashedieh, Ein el-Helweh or
Shatila are going to live there when there is peace," he proclaimed.
"Don't you think?" How could I disagree?

"But they are not from here, they are from villages
in the Galilee and from Jaffa, Haifa and Acca." My Palestinian
assistant, a university graduate from Jerusalem, intervened as I kept
silent. "Don't you think I know they are not from here," the 12 year
old responded.

"Maybe they don't even want to live here in
Nablus," he continued, "but you know, the Israelis will never allow
them to return to "the 48." At least here they can live. I don't think
it's just, but it's better."

"What is being planned for us now is not justice
nor peace, but it is something, - a solution which will be imposed on
us if we like it or not." This was the graduate speaking again. I
could only hope he was wrong. We drove off from Balata across the
city, as a radio message reported shooting incidents in Mukhaiem Ein
Bet Ilma, "Camp No.One", North Nablus.

I wanted to tell this story from Nablus because it
depicts a reality of the peace process which I think is entirely
different from other similar experiences in our time - of peace
processes, of overcoming apartheid or the legacy of dictatorships, or
of the de-colonisation processes of the post-World War II era.

The contention of this author is that the
completely asymmetric relationship between Israel and the PLO/PA has
been allowed not only to determine the course of the negotiations, but
has apparently predetermined the whole process to an extent that there
is little room left for third parties roles and for confidence in the
third parties currently involved. 2

Human rights - not condusive to peace?

In spite of the official croniqueurs describing an
unprecedented daring diplomacy with an extremely fragile step-by-step
negotiations process at its centre, the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process appears to be "implemented" on the basis of a fait accompli.
As was said, "a solution which will be imposed on us if we like it or
not". Not only have the most difficult issues, such as the refugees,
the final and the legal status of the Occupied Territories, the status
of Jerusalem and the Israeli settlements, all been deferred to the
final status negotiations, but issues which would be on top of the
agenda in other similar processes are simply left out: A legal
settlement, which has been and still is an issue in South America,
South Africa and Eastern Europe, including previous Yugoslavia, is
completely out of context in the Palestinian-Israeli case. A truth
commission is not even on the agenda of the Palestinian opposition. In
an interview where one of the Palestinian negotiators explained the
logic of the talks in the secret channel, the History of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict was apparently viewed as such a
contentious issue that the negotiators had no choice but to "leave it
behind", should the talks lead anywhere. Nearly all issues to be
deferred to the final status negotiations are issues where the
Palestinians literally will stand to loose terrain as they are not
allowed to raise these issues, while the Israelis are changing the
facts on the ground day by day in Jerusalem and on the West Bank. It
is the history of the Palestinians which had to be "forgotten" and
left behind for the sake of progress in negotiations.

Another issue which is not on the negotiations
agenda but which both parties and some of the major donors may
consider "contentious and not condusive to peace" is the human rights
issue.

That issue has always been on the agenda of
Palestinians under occupation, and western donors have supported
Palestinian human rights organisations, particularly over the last
decade. But with the coming of the self-rule authorities, with donor
conferences emphasising the establishment of a strong security
apparatus and other grand design projects in the self-rule areas,
human rights is no longer a priority.

The number one priority for Israel, the Palestinian
Administration and the main international sponsors and donor
governments alike has been to build a Palestinian security apparatus
which may fence off anything perceived of as a threat to the peace
process. The negotiated agreement itself, with its detailed annexes
gave provision for setting up a Palestinian police force so massive
that it by far outnumbers the employees in the health and educational
sectors. The size of such a security apparatus may have served to
discourage opposition, also democratic opposition, and it has
certainly frightened members of the human rights community.

But whatever is the size of the security forces,
these can never guarantee security for Israel and peaceful coexistence
between Israel and Palestinians if minimum living condition
requirements for the Palestinians living in Gaza are not met. In the
peace process, a massive international aid package should provide the
Palestinian community with the basis for economic and social
development (another Marshall-plan). However, as the Israelis sealed
off the Occupied Territories, well before the Declaration of
Principles was signed, thus preventing normal human, and among these
perhaps most importantly, economic activities, the massive
international aid effort following the Declaration of Principles (DOP)
and the Paris Protocol has largely failed its purpose: To sustain and
strengthen a political process by creating economic growth. In a
situation where Israel's closures of Gaza has produced a net loss for
the Gazan economy which is higher than the overall international aid
during the same protracted time intervals, and where unemployment has
reached levels above 60 %, the international donors have had no choice
but to fund short term emergency work programmes. To let a few
thousand Gazans clean the streets instead of, as one of them said,
building a road. 3

During the debate about "justice in transition" in
the international human rights community, the slogan of "all the
truth, and as much justice as possible" appeared.4 This still seems a
lot to demand - but would it be too much to ask for some decency? It
may be that such decency is not to be found behind all the 'peace
talk' - the New World Order rhetoric and phraseology - a complete
discourse with which we have become so familiar perhaps without
understanding its contents.

"No alternative"

It is not the purpose of this article to present an
analysis of the politics which made this process possible and perhaps
inevitable, or of the political culture of the New World Order which
provided the basis for the new discourse mentioned above. It may be
timely though, to comment in a little more detail on this discourse as
it has introduced, explained and served to give legitimacy to the
implementation of the New World Order in the Middle East. The
discourse has at the same time, thanks to largely uncritical news
media, helped to marginalise all opposition and push it towards
Islamic militancy as the only alternative.

Since before the news of the secret Oslo-channel
broke, the parties to the Declaration of Principles and its sponsors
and facilitators, have contributed to a phraseology which has
established a dominant discourse which in its turn has largely ruled
out and prohibited other and critical discourses. The 'peace talk'
discourse has served not only to prepare the ground for and explain
the logic of, but also to neutralise criticism of, the peace process.
With its emphasis on the very fragile nature of the process, the
carefully-built-up confidence inside a small group of individuals, the
mutual respect, confidence and friendships established between the
negotiators, the discourse has served to caution criticism. Critics
have also felt marginalised by the constant reference to the "islamic
fundamentalists as the only enemies of peace." One of the most
frequently used phrases in this discourse is the ready response to any
criticism of the peace process, a response which according to
Professor Edward Said might have been a good rhetorical question, if
it hadn't been asked too often: What is the alternative? 5

Such rhetoric has constituted the basic
fundamentals of the "peace talk" discourse which real significance is
that most criticism has come to be seen as illegitimate and ultimately
destructive because it may serve the same purpose as a massacre or a
suicide bus bomb - to derail the peace process. There are fears that
any criticism, even if levelled in a human rights context and from a
human rights point-of-view, may be conceived of as
not-condusive-to-peace, and should therefore be avoided. The relative
amnesia regarding human rights violations apparently affecting the
international donor community may have been interpreted in the
Palestinian self-rule Authority as a "green light" for circumvention
of minimum standards, hence the human rights record of the PA and
Arafats rough treatment of human rights activists recently.

To understand the conditions under which, and on
what basis human rights, democracy, peaceful coexistence and
reconciliation is expected to be developed under Palestinian
self-rule, one has to examine the apparently predetermined political
process but first of all the facts established on the ground. Such an
objective may be beyond the scope of this article, but still it is
possible to point out certain facts which underscores the asymmetric
relationship of power and influence between the parties to the
negotiations, and the resulting failure to provide for inter alia, a
legal basis and a rule of law by which human rights may be
safeguarded.

The asymmetry also applies to the unfailing backing
of the Israeli approach by the most pro-Israeli US administration
ever, and simultaneously the failing support to the Palestinian cause
by either super-power, the European Community and even the United
Nations. This is in short an answer to a question which is not asked
too often: Why is there no alternative?

Another form of domination

In the context of the new world order, what is
taking place between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Occupied
West Bank and Gaza seems completely different from the South African
experience of overcoming Apartheid and building democracy, or for that
matter "Overcoming the Legacies of Dictatorships" 6 of Eastern Europe
and South America. The process of redeployment of the Israeli Defence
Forces (IDF), deployment of Palestinian Police Forces and the
establishment of a Palestinian Authority of limited self-rule is also
different from experiences of decolonisation. The beginning of the end
of occupation has been mentioned not only by Palestinian officials,
but for instance by Uri Savir from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Some of the "peace-talk" rhetoric also includes comparisons
with presumably similar historical experiences and political leaders,
such as the French decolonisation of Algeria, as Arafat has been
rephrasing De Gaulles' "the peace of the brave", connoting experiences
of struggle for freedom and liberation, but also perhaps
unintentionally, the establishment of a one-party-state-apparatus by
the FLN.

Unfortunately, facts on the ground will corroborate
doubts about the announced de-colonisation and liberation. And the
changing of facts on the ground, makes mockery of the official
phraseology of the peace process which has deferred key issues of the
status of the Occupied Territories to the final status negotiations
and which has prohibited the Palestinians from raising these final
status issues. An occupation power involved in peace talks, preparing
for step by step de-colonisation would hardly construct hundreds of
kilometres of new roads for exclusive settler use, binding settlements
together. Graham Usher in Middle East International has noted
that..."since Oslo, Israel has confiscated a further 40 000 acres of
Palestinian land,.." 7 Usher has also explained that Israeli
construction of settlements in Occupied Territories not only has
continued in spite of the official settlement freeze, but "according
to Israeli commentators" has accelerated to, "....three times the pace
of settlement construction under the Shamir Government."8

From the outset the framework and the very basis of
the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians was
seriously challenged by critics. One of them, Professor Edward Said,
wrote: "All secret deals between a very strong and a very weak partner
necessarily involve concessions hidden in embarrassment by the
latter." Though admitting that there are details to be negotiated,
"imponderables to be made clear, and even some hopes either to be
fulfilled or dashed.", Said wrote: "Still, the deal before us smacks
of the PLO leadership's exhaustion and isolation, and of Israel's
shrewdness".9

It is obvious that such a reaction to the DOP, the
Oslo I and II is not unwarranted, and a question it provokes is
whether reconciliation, peace and development of Palestinian
independence and democracy is viable unless the negotiations framework
of the peace process undergoes fundamental changes.

Another critic, advocate Raja Shehadeh who was the
legal adviser to the Joint Jordanian-Palestinian team in the first
phase of the Madrid-Washington rounds, elaborated further on this
imbalance of power between the weak and the strong in the negotiations
context: "Despite Israel's well known legalistic and Talmudic approach
to negotiations, the Palestinian team negotiating in Oslo did not
consult with any legal adviser. It appears that only at the end the
text of the agreement was shown to an Egyptian, Taher Shash. No
Palestinian jurist was ever present or consulted throughout the
process."10

An appropriate question to ask when examining the
peace process and its failure to adequately address the most basic
legal issues is whether the Israelis allowed a Palestinian lawyer
experienced in international law and with knowledge or experience of
occupation in the PLO Oslo team? Notably Israel has always tried to
impose on the Palestinians who may and may not represent them. Or
were the PLO-leadership so concerned about showing both its
willingness to negotiate and its "moderation" that a lawyer would only
complicate matters?

The framework of negotiations has been challenged,
and more so the results of the negotiations, and critics have pointed
out that the legal framework for Palestinian self rule does not
provide for the necessary Palestinian sovereignty, and suggested that
the transition in point is merely a transition from one form of
domination to another.

Control of Law and Economy

Under the interim agreement, or the so-called
Oslo II, the legal and economic sectors are firmly under Israeli
control as the Israeli authorities have acceded only limited authority
within a number of civilian sectors, and on the internal security
sector. Israel has kept control of all matters related to sovereignty
and other matters as significant as budgets and school curricula may
be, formally under PA, but due to be submitted to Joint Liaison
Committees where the Israelis not only have the upper hand but the
veto. As an illustration of the limitations to the authorities
conceeded to the self-rule government Raja Shehadeh argued that
further law amendments required to allow for the Oslo II Agreement
would be negligible if necessary at all. The limited concessions to
Palestinian self-rule were already provided for in the "Bill on
Implementing the Agreement Concerning the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area
(Amendment of Legislation) 1994," submitted to the Knesset July 25th
1994, in preparation for the so-called Early Empowerment Agreement.11

The major focus of the self-rule negotiations has
consistently been Israeli security with Israeli economic
considerations built in. This seems obvious for example from a
critical reading of the Cairo (Gaza-Jericho) Agreement and analysis of
the implementation of the Oslo (I) Agreement through the Cairo
Agreement. 12 Such critical analysis exposes the
continued Israeli control of all matters related to sovereignty
(border control, immigration, water and land resources, electricity,
import and export of goods and services, production licences etc.) in
addition to, as we shall se below, sovereignty and the source of
sovereignty itself. This control is critical for the economic sector
in order not only to maintain the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT's) as one of the (second) most important Israeli consumer
markets, or to enable access to other Arab markets, but in order to
develop "a branch plant" economy by setting up in the self-rule areas
industrial zones and agricultural plants of labour intensive, low wage
produce where value added mainly will accrue in Israel. This is a
development consistent with the policy outlined in the Israeli
strategic economic analyses commissioned by the Defence Ministry in
1991. (The Sadan report) 13 A strong argument can be made that the
Oslo-process in legal terms may serve as a blueprint for such a
transformation. It is noteworthy that the approach of the World Bank
and the major denominators of aid policies is consistent with the
Sadan report's model for the development of Gaza. 14 Given the policy
of physical separation between Israel and the Occupied Territories
that has characterised Israeli politics since March - 93 when the
Occupied territories were closed off from Jerusalem and Israel, it is
likely that establishment of branch plants of Israeli industries and
possibly of other industries may take place to an increasing
degree. There are signs that Israeli industries will continue a policy
of developing industrial parks inside the self-rule area. A policy
which the World Bank and some of the major donors to the peace process
seems to be following. Private foreign investors may also venture into
this "Bantustan" version of Palestinian economy as prospectives of an
independent Palestinian self-rule economy are glum.

An important indicator of the lacking confidence in
the self-rule project by industrialists and investors is that even
wealthy Palestinian businessmen abroad deem the self-rule areas as too
risky. Ceremonies where peace accords were signed and peace makers
rewarded, even a landslide presidential majority has not helped Arafat
much. In the stock-marked there is not much confidence.

Investment and growth in the self-rule areas is
also not facilitated by the unclearity in the legal status, and the
actual application of law regulating economic life may further
discourage investors.

Legal status

The overall legal status of the self-rule areas is
in many respects unclear, and as far as the status of the
International Humanitarian Law is concerned, some legal analysis have
stated that the provisions in the Fourth Geneva Conventions may
implicate that Israel will still be responsible for protection of
civilians as "the implementation of interim agreements between the
occupying power and elements or representatives of the occupied
population do not automatically signal the end of occupation, and
above all, that such arrangements cannot diminish the rights of
protected persons under the Convention." 15

On the other hand some legal experts have
emphasised that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions may not be
applicable as the occupation authorities do not have "actual control",
i.e. a military presence in all the Occupied Territories. 16

If the status of International Law and
International Humanitarian Law in the self rule areas of the Occupied
Territories is unclear, the Israeli position as outlined by the senior
government legal adviser may give reasons for some further concern.
What remains clear however, is Israeli policies on the matter of
sovereignty over the self-rule areas. In an article in "Justice", a
newsletter published by the International Association of Jewish
Lawyers and Jurists, Joel Singer comments on the issue of self-rule
and legal status. Singer, who is not only an experienced legislator
of occupation law, but who was an adviser to the Camp David
negotiations, and became the senior legal adviser for the Israeli team
in Oslo, and has been a leading figure responsible of drafting and
editing most of the DOP, the Cairo Agreement and the subsequent
agreements, explains that under self-rule ....."These areas will
continue to be subject to military government." Similarly, (Singer
explains) "this fact suggests that the Palestinian Council will not be
independent or sovereign in nature, but rather will be legally
subordinate to the authority of the military government. In other
words, operating within Israel, the military government will continue
to be the source of authority for the Palestinian Council and powers
and responsibilities exercised by it in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."
17
According to Singer, the DOP preferable to the Camp David draft for
self-rule in which the question of "source of authority" was as he
puts it, "left unclear."

As all matters related to sovereignty has been kept
under Israeli authority, the Palestinians/PA are not licensed to start
legal proceedings against Palestinians accused of having collaborated
with the occupation authorities. Such legal settlements are pending
the final status negotiations, according to the Cairo Agreement
between Israel and the PLO. 18 This clause is not only politically
embarrassing for Arafat and the PA, but it is worrying from the point
of view of anybody concerned about the advancement of law enforcement,
legal settlements, democracy and human rights. This section of the
agreement risks incline the public or the PA to deal with the
collaborators on an arbitrary basis and outside the frames of
legality, a practise which apparently has been followed to some
extent.

No rule by Law

The establishment of a PLO-administration propped
up by the deployment of up to 30 000 security personnel recruited
largely from PLO-forces, including a few thousand Intifada-activists,
is not assuring. 19 The main task, and presumably the
justification for the deployment of this enormous security force, has
been as defined by PLO/PA and Israel jointly, to demonstrate the
importance of stability (PA-control) in the self-rule areas and to
prevent violence against Israelis, including settlers, a task which
the combined Israeli army IDF and Police could never completely
handle. The latter, is also a task which increasingly has embarrassed
the PLO-leader as he is ultimately held responsible for the security
of all Israelis in the area. Is the threat to the peace process from
the opposition such that a security apparatus the size of what it took
the Syrians to control Lebanon during the years of war is adequate?
Wouldn't critics be rights in assuming that such an over-sized
security force with no less than eight intelligence and internal
security branches is an indication of which climate may be expected in
the self-rule areas, as far as the advancement of peace, justice,
democracy and human rights is concerned.

A legal system which is not only chaotic but which
lacks a a constitution and legitimate legislature may cause misgivings
about the future of Palestinian self-rule. It has given the PLO leader
a free hand to develop a number of internal security and intelligence
agencies, all outside the control of the head of the Police Force and
the Ministry of Justice, and actually controlled by Arafat himself.
The "Protocols Concerning Redeployment and Security Arrangements"
under Oslo II already provided for the establishments of at least
three secret services agencies inside the Palestinian Police Force.
20

Another issue which has given rise to further fears
for the future of self-rule is the draft Basic Law. The law can
easily be interpreted as an attempt by the PLO-leadership to find a
constitutional cover and remain firmly in control of law enforcement,
legislation and judiciary on the basis of having established the PLO
as a "state within the state", effectively outside the Palestinian
Authority. It is impossible to foresee how the elections in the
self-rule areas will affect the constitutional and legal thinking of
the PLO-leadership. In this respect it is too early to predict a
dynamics by which the PLO-leadership will be challenged and influenced
by democratic and pluralist thought among Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories or outside.

Consequently there are fears that the elections may
only serve to give a democratic blessing to Arafat's autocratic
leadership, as intimidation, lack of alternatives, big denominator
support for Arafat's line and unfair election laws (actually excluding
other alternatives) may have secured Arafat a bigger majority than he
needs.

The establishment and practices of the different
branches of Mukhabarat, or the PA's intelligence and secret services
has been an issue since before Arafat arrived in Gaza and is seen in
many quarters, not surprisingly, as the first signs of the coming of
yet another Arab dictatorship. This issue has understandably been
dealt with mainly by the Israeli press, such as the Jerusalem Post and
by the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem notably in the
report "Neither Law nor Justice", 21 The first major
reports on the human rights situation following the establishment of
the PA by Human Rights Watch (Middle East) 22 and Amnesty
International which, as well as dealing with continuing Israeli human
rights violations, also detail violations by the PA. Their reports in
this regard are consistent with individual and independent Palestinian
reports and the essence of the press reports. Palestinian human rights
organisations and Palestinian individuals in the Occupied Territories
have also been seen as cautious in their criticism of the PA. A well
known Palestinian human rights activist told this author that
Palestinian human rights organisations were able to publicise reports
more critical of Israeli practices before, than of Palestinian
practices after self-rule.

The practices of the Mukhabarat, for example the
Preventive Security Services are characterised by rule without law, a
practice condoned by Israeli Police and Israeli General Security
Services, Shin Bet or Shabak, agencies with which the PSS clearly
co-ordinate. The PSS has even "arrested" and abducted a number of
Palestinians from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the West Bank, the PSS is
operating networks of agents from Jenin to Hebron, from Jericho,
spreading fear through arbitrary arrests, abductions, mistreatment and
torture in prisons where the ICRC, lawyers and families at best have
very limited access. There are indications that the PPS has also
included in its network Palestinians who are still collaborating with
the Israeli GSS. 23

In Gaza the situation is much the same as agents of
Arafat's "Force 17", "Presidential Security" and "Fateh Hawks"
demonstrate their superiority in what may seem as a rivalry between
various branches of the police force: The special units appear in
night-time operations in the same fashion as the Israeli undercover
units, and their members guard important PA-structures like the
Department of Justice and the Police's Headquarters.

There have been deaths under interrogation and
during prison terms which have either not been investigated or where
the results of the investigations are not known. The
Palestinian-American Azzam Musleh who died in Jericho in October 1995
was the sixth Palestinian who is known to have died in the hands of
the PA's security services.

Arafat's response to Israeli demands for more
security precautions following suicide-attacks inside Israel is more
arrests and summary sentences under military/special courts set up by
Arafat. This is just about the only achievement for which many
Israelis has been willing to credit the PA leader. Israeli pressures
on Arafat to act against threats of terrorism as defined by Israel has
caused further embarrassment for Palestinians - as has the extent to
which Arafat has complied with Israeli demands: Arrest campaigns
(again similar to previous Israeli practices) usually following
political or factional lines. One human rights activist commented on
what is seen as an Israeli security obsession from a Palestinian point
of view - and why: "How can we provide security for the Israelis when
there is not even some basic decency for the Palestinians?"

Who rules?

The issuance of PA travel documents is another
example of the limitations to the authority that Israel has acceded to
the PA. Having and exercising the authority to issue Palestinian
Authority travel documents may have enhanced national sentiments in a
nation-building process. However, it may also have served to
underscore the overall Israeli control, and to further embarrass
issuing authorities as it symbolises the implementation of more
cumbersome security procedures through a double security apparatus,
where Palestinians often find themselves caught in-between. In the end
it is the Israelis who are controlling exit, entrance and residence in
the self-rule areas. A travel document is worth nothing if Israel has
not agreed to its issuance, and if the Israelis want to refuse a
persons re-entrance to Gaza from abroad by e.g. quoting security
reasons, they are sovereign, and are entitled to do so under the terms
of the interim peace accord.

The question of the regulation of Palestinian
residence rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is for sure
an interesting one, as is the question of the freedom of movement
granted to a handful of Palestinian residents. One name in the latter
group got much attention. Amin al-Hindi, a PLO Intelligence Chief whom
Arafat made PA Counterintelligence Chief, was not only granted
residence, but received full VIP status and can travel anywhere in
Israel. Actually al-Hindi is a favourite candidate of some of the top
brass among the Israeli General Security Services, or Shin Bet, to
succeed Jibril Rajub, another strongman responsible for the PSS
structure in Jericho and for the West Bank network just described. It
is noteworthy that Amin al-Hindi's name has been all over the Israeli
press because the Israelis hold that he was a member of the Munich hit
team in 1972. 24

Why couldn't the Israelis at least show the same
kind of flexibility towards persons with a genuinely human and
humanitarian vocation, such as Palestinian doctors from Gaza doing
their training in a Jerusalem hospital, or Gazan students striving to
get their much needed degrees at a West Bank university. Why are then
these people constantly prevented from leaving Gaza for the West Bank?
In addition to its effect on normal human contacts and activities, the
severe restrictions on ´the freedomª of movement still in
force on travel within the Occupied Territories and between Gaza and
the West Bank and Jerusalem, probably also remains the most visible
sign of continued occupation.

Monitoring a different peace

An element in the implementation of the peace
accords on the ground appears to be a circumvention of internationally
accepted principles and practices of peacekeeping and observers
missions.

The negotiations results and agreements have put at
risk the status of internationally accepted principles of impartiality
and transparency of the operations of international peacekeeping and
protection of civilians in conflict areas. These principles and
acknowledged practices have been challenged due to the balance of
power between the parties to the negotiations and the subsequent
political constraints of the current peace process, as is evident in
UN Security Council Resolution 904. The resolution apparently gave a
UN blessing to the establishment of an observer mission outside the
framework of the UN, and the implementation of the three-nation
observer corps in Hebron 1994, the Temporary International Presence in
the Hebron Area (TIPH).

The parties themselves drafted the mandate which
clearly reflected the fact that the observer mission first and
foremost was politically motivated and that the mission would have no
obligations to report to an independent international body. The
mandate was apparently a mandate to monitor a different kind of peace.
This operation may have weakened the guiding principles and the
instruments at hand for the enforcement of international law and
protection of civilians, and has let Israel, which never acknowledged
the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied
Territories, to direct and control much of the observer operation
through Joint PA/Israeli Committees. In spite of the ill-fated TIPH
mission to Hebron in 1994 the PA (and Israel) have asked for
assistance for a new Hebron observers mission within the framework of
Oslo II. 25

Modernising the UN

Another important element of the New World Order as
implemented in the Middle East, is a development which puts at risk
internationally accepted principles for conflict resolution, in
particular the basis for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. "Rewriting history at the UN" is a phrase used by Donald
Neff in Middle East International appropriately describing the process
in point. 26

Under the most pro-Israeli US Administration,
President Clinton's ambassador to the UN (1994) has stated that the US
will vote against, or will pressure for revoking or rewriting all
"contentious (UN General Assembly) resolutions that accentuated
political differences without promoting solutions." It is not
coincidental that these are all resolutions critical of Israel and
supportive of the Palestinians. Furthermore these are resolutions
through which the UN has confirmed that the international community
will observe the principles of international law regarding the
Question of Palestine. Ambassador Albright instituted this principle
of supporting "to-day's realities" by aiming at "improving" or
eliminating such key resolutions as the 1969 and 1970 resolutions
affirming the inalienable rights, the equal rights, and the right to
self-determination for the Palestinian people. 27

The resolutions which cover the key issues of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict must, according to the US Administration,
be revoked or rewritten not only because they are contentious in
general, but because they include references to issues which are under
negotiation by the parties to the peace negotiations over final status
issues like the rights of the refugees, Israeli settlements,
territorial sovereignty and the status of Jerusalem. The US voted for
the first time against all these resolutions during 1993 and 1994.

Along with the Declaration of Principles and the
subsequent Israeli-Palestinian agreements, the resolution
"modernising" efforts at the UN, puts at risk and undermines
international humanitarian law and may partly, in the Palestinian
case, replace the internationally acknowledged principles and
instruments at hand for protection of civilians under occupation and
for conflict resolution.

Is it a coincident that the "contentious"
UN-resolutions on the modernisation agenda are all pro-Palestinian
resolutions which belong to the legacy of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation?

In line with the rewriting of UN history and the
history of Israel and Palestine, the US Administration has also put
pressure on major donor countries to urge UNRWA to plan its own
demise. It has already been decided by the UN Secretary General that
UNRWA's Headquarters will be transferred to Gaza, where eventually, it
will be taken over by the PA. This move not only represents a change
of the focus of the UNRWA, with programmes always emphasising services
for the Palestinian refugee communities in exile. It also points to
the demise of UNRWA and the dissolution of the refugee problem. 29 Such a
development is disastrous even for the Palestinians in Gaza, of which
more than 60% are UNRWA-registered refugees. They now risk the
deprivation of their hard earned status and rights as UN-registered
refugees, but will remain stateless Palestinians, holders of
Palestinian Authorities ID-cards, subjects of Israeli and Palestinian
authorities, legally under Israeli sovereignty, foreigners in their
own country.

The Peace Process since Madrid has also allowed the
refugee issue, which was always at the centre of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be dealt with on the side-track in
one of the Multilateral Committees, the Refugee Working Group
(RWG).

Since before the peace talks started in Madrid and
Washington, the Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon, Syria and
Jordan have been allocated relatively less resources from UNRWA.
Other international relief agencies/NGO's also shifted the emphasis of
their programmes as the Intifada (as was said) had changed the focus
of the Palestinian struggle from the outside to the inside, and since
the Gulf War and the Madrid Conference this tendency seems
strengthened. The decrease in international support for the
Palestinians in exile, in spite of rising needs, also applies to the
PLO which has cut most forms of aid to Lebanon.

Rosemary Sayegh has noted that UNRWA has been
reducing its relative budget allocations for the Palestinian Refugees
in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria compared with the allocations for Gaza
and the West Bank. This applies to the over-all budget, and the
pattern is, according to Sayegh, even more transparent in UNRWA's
special budgets, in the Extraordinary Measures for Lebanon and the
Occupied Territories (EMLOT), the Expanded Programme of Assistance
(EPA), and most notably in the Peace Implementation Programme (PIP).
30

In the event that UNRWA disappears, the refugee
issue may be dealt with regionally and unilaterally by Israel, the PA
and the host countries. But even with the current changing focus of
UNRWA, and the new political and economic constraints on the agency,
the Palestinian refugee communities, particularly in exile, may not
much longer find the support they always counted on. If this were to
happen, and if the rights of Palestinian refugees were to be ignored
in a final settlement, the international community will have failed
its obligations towards the Palestinian refugees and to come to their
support through the UN.

Are there third parties?

During a recent visit to the Occupied Palestinian
Territories by this author, a well known Palestinian lawyer complained
that there are no longer any third parties the Palestinians may rely
on.

The notion of the role or responsibilities of a
third party is closely linked to the idea of a framework of an
international world order where conflict resolution is based on
certain internationally acknowledged principles including the
safeguarding of fundamental human rights through implementation of
International Humanitarian Law. International human rights law also
assigns specific roles to third parties. In this context third parties
are obliged to ensure respect for these principles where other
denominators, in support of either party in a conflict, may not adhere
to the same principles.

The New World Order as implemented in the Middle
East, with its centre in the Israeli-Palestinian context, may mark the
end of an era where conflict resolution efforts were supposed to be
governed by certain internationally acknowledged principles. A peace
process has emerged, apparently predetermined and therefore
inevitable. Consequently the process itself seems to be unchallenged.
One may then assume that this particular process has constituted its
own governing principles and replaced existing foundations for
conflict resolutions. Did we, as it appears, reach a conflict
resolution level where there are not any longer real conflicting
parties, only partners, sponsors and facilitators?

A possible survival test for the notion of third
parties may well be to determine to what extent either of the
sponsors, facilitators or the denominators (those setting the rules of
the peace process), or indeed any of the countries in the North
traditionally conceived of as pro-Third-World-causes, are still in a
position to adhere to principles recognised universally and inherent
in International Humanitarian Law. The test is really if there are
third parties ready to support the weaker party in the process to make
up for some of the asymmetry which is built in. The ultimate question
might just as well be if the Palestinian Authority/PLO-leadership are
ready to ask for such third party support, or will have to respond as
a young diplomat involved in the current peace process did - "No, no,
that belongs to the old Palestine agenda!"

The Author is currently an
advisor to Norwegian immigration authorities in Middle East refugee
and asylum issues has also worked with humantitarian aid and human
rights related issues in UNRWA, in Norwegian People's Aid and the
Norwegian Refugee Council. He is a member of the Human Rights
Commission under the Council of International and Ecumenical
Relations, Church of Norway.

The article above is based on a lecture held in a
human rights seminar Nov. 10th 1995 by the Norwegian branch of Amnesty
International.